Sunday Drive: George Wesley Thomas on His Horse - 1934

George, the grandson of Ashtabula Lyle Thomas, is one of my maternal fourth cousins, once removed. The notes tell us that this was taken outside their house in N.E. Washington D.C. in about 1934.

[Found on VickieHill56's Ancestry.com family]

I've really been enjoying the family photos posted to her Ancestry.com family tree by VickieHill56 (who is not on my DNA match list, although I'm sure we're related somehow).

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Gone for Soldiers: The Grand Review of the Armies, Washington D.C. - May 23, 1865

On this day 153 years ago, 90,000 soldiers from the Army of the Potomac marched down Pennsylvania Avenue on the first of two days of military parades to celebrate the Union victory.*

[Mounted officers and unidentified units on Pennsylvania Avenue, May 1865. Source: Library of Congress]

And where was Dick Worden, my great great grandfather, at the time? Was he one of the marchers in Washington D.C.?

Alas, no.

After being invalided out shortly after Vicksburg in 1863, he had reenlisted early in the next year and went back to his old Company G of the 24th Iowa Infantry Regiment, then part of General Sheridan's Army of the Shenandoah in Virginia, which was in Georgia when the Grand Review took place.



*The men from General Sherman's Army of Georgia, 60,000 strong, traveled the same route the next day.
**Either Savannah or Augusta.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Working on Wednesday: Josiah Haralson Freeman (1897 - 1950), Seaman

In 1919 Josiah H. Freeman (a second cousin, twice removed) was issued his seaman's protection certificate* in New Orleans. 

[Ancestry.com. U.S., Applications for Seaman's Protection Certificates, 1916-1940 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Original data: Application for Seaman's Protection Certificates, 1916-1940. 1151 Boxes. NAID: 2788575. Records of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation, 1774-1982, Record Group 41. The National Archives at Washington, D.C.]

His application lists the birthplaces of his father Leroy W. Freeman and himself, both of whom were natives of Georgia. Josiah had enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War I and apparently found the lure of the sea was stronger than his attachment to his Georgia home.

[Ancestry.com. U.S., Applications for Seaman's Protection Certificates, 1916-1940 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Original data: Application for Seaman's Protection Certificates, 1916-1940. 1151 Boxes. NAID: 2788575. Records of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation, 1774-1982, Record Group 41. The National Archives at Washington, D.C.]

As far as I can tell he never lived in Georgia again, residing first in Baltimore, Maryland, and then in Washington D.C. In his 1942 draft registration card he listed his place of work as the U.S. Government Navy Yard and named his mother as his nearest relative.

[Draft Registration Cards for District of Columbia, 10/16/1940 - 03/31/1947, Fold3.com. Original source: The National Archive.]

Josiah died at the age of 53 and is buried in the National Cemetery in Baltimore.

He was named for his great great grandfather Josiah Freeman, the ancestor we both trace to.

[Ancestry.com]

*Christine shared a much earlier version of the same type of certificate for her paternal fourth great grandfather Solomon Joseph Hartley (1775-1815).


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.